


Overjoyed

by whosCarmilla (EyeofOrion)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Gen, blood tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2431205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyeofOrion/pseuds/whosCarmilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla thinks perhaps her tiny, angry roommate does not completely suck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overjoyed

It was a long time after the debacle with the curtains – a torture she sat through, she told herself, _purely_ because she was physically restrained, not at all because she forgave this tiny sweet girl for the idea – that Carmilla realised the dreams were less frequent now. There were still times when she woke up, cold as dirt and pupils huge, like an animal terrified for its life – or trying to see in the dark. And she could _feel_ it, the blood, cloying and sloshing and _clotting_ , in her eyes and in her mouth and she couldn’t scream, or move, or even die. In the narrow box too many feet under the earth, there had been no rest; the perpetual consciousness had been enough to twist her thoughts into long, rambling paths that led nowhere good. Visions had danced before her blind eyes, and it had been so long since there was anything but darkness that she had not known if they were buried memories or the creations of an unravelling mind. She took cold comfort, on the nights when she remembered, in the fact that she could sleep now. In a way, the nightmares were a betrayal; sleep was a liberty she had not had under the earth, so it was an escape now.

But, as she realised, several weeks after the sock puppet embarrassment, and the rather more serious events that followed, the dreams were not so pervasive. For a long time, she stared into the darkness, listening to the soft breaths and rustles so close beside her, and tried to pinpoint the moment things changed.

Things had always been different with Laura, she supposed. More than once, Carmilla had found herself watching her, unconsciously drinking in her every move and mannerism. She was not just a target, and, now Carmilla came to think of it, she never really had been.

The more Carmilla thought, the more her mind tentatively – because, after all, she was used to staunchly remaining behind her impenetrable emotional armour – wandered back to Laura’s hand on her knee, still sock-clad, and a little sheepish. For someone who had berated her roommate for making insensitive jokes about traumatic things, it _had_ been a little on-the-nose to re-enact Carmilla’s murder in front of her. But, try as she might, Carmilla could not find it in her to remain angry at the performance. The apology was clear in Laura’s face, and she was so young, and so full of light. And she forgave. More than that; she empathised, and she wished that things could have been different. For the first time in hundreds of years, Carmilla slowly realised, somebody wanted to protect her.

That night, she slept soundly, and she woke with her head full of the smell of that yellow pillowcase and the soft humming of her friend.

Friend. She liked that word.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from “[Overjoyed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3fVJtFTh0)” - Bastille


End file.
